


Beautiful Memories

by regaljacki



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Heartbreaking, I'm Sorry, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28838949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regaljacki/pseuds/regaljacki
Summary: This is a sad one-shot! Be prepared!
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser
Comments: 20
Kudos: 42





	Beautiful Memories

James Fraser was happy. He had it all. A beautiful wife, two wonderful children and a big house to share it with them.

There was not a single thing he would want to change about his life.  _ Not a single thing.  _

Jamie returned from his weekly grocery trip and filled the drawers in the kitchen he had organized with Claire years ago, when he suddenly felt two arms wrap around his body. He smiled, getting the warm feeling the moment her skin touches his.  _ Oh how he missed her while he was gone. _

“Can I help you, Darling?”

“Dinna fash, Sassenach. Ye can go play with our two beautiful daughters, while I prepare something to eat.”

“What’s on the menu for today?”

“Whatever ye wish, Sassenach.”

He couldn’t resist laying the world at Claire’s and their daughter’s feet. They were his life, they were his everything, the reason he walked this earth, and the reason why he is the man he is now.

Jamie set the table for four, when his little family looking like angels walked towards him with their biggest smiles.

“DA!!!!”

Faith, their oldest daughter, just turned six while Brianna, their youngest, was four.

“Come here my beautiful wee angels.”

Jamie opened his arms and pressed them tightly into them, never wanting to let them go. How could he? How could he ever let his family go? This was never an option for him.

Jamie couldn’t keep his eyes off of Claire, holding her hand while they were eating. God she is always so cold.

“Christ, Sassenach, yere freezing.”

“It’s alright Jamie. I’ll be fine.”

A sad smile crossed her face and Jamie didn’t know why. He couldn’t explain why in a moment with their family she looked more like a lost soul trying to find its way back to the place it belongs.

“Gi’ me yer hand, Claire.”

He took her icy hands into his warm ones and tried to warm her.

_ She’s so cold. So cold. Warm her, Jamie. Warm them. _

Jamie stood up to get a blanket that laid on their couch and wrapped it around Claire.

“Christ, yere shakin’ so hard it’s making my teeth rattle.”

“Jamie, it's probably the heater that isn’t working. Maybe you can check it out tomorrow.” 

“Aye! The heater! Right!”

A sudden rock fell from Jamie’s chest and it felt like he could breathe again and they all ate their dinner in peace, enjoying the time together as a family. Happy, how it’s always supposed to be.

Jamie always loved those moments with all of them together. Their daughters are as beautiful as their Mother, as stubborn as himself, sitting there, enjoying their food, laughing and talking about what they would play tomorrow. And Claire,  _ Christ Claire,  _ she was an angel in his darkness. The light that led him on.  _ His sorcha.  _ What would he do without her? Without them? He wouldn’t know.

As Jamie cleaned up with Claire and asked the girls to get ready for bed, he smiled at his wife who stood next to him.

“Jamie, you have to move on.”

He looked at her confused. Move on with what? His job? He didn’t quite understand.

“What do ye mean, Sassenach?”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“I dinna ken.”

His voice was as cold as it could get, he now saw his daughters standing hand in hand next to the kitchen table all three of them possessing the same whisky gaze filled with sadness.

“You do”, she whispered.

“No. I willna hear it.”

“Jamie, open your eyes! Open them! Please!”

“I willna-”

“Open them!”

And with a gut wrenching sob he looked around him. Darkness filled the room. Broken furniture covered the ground. Expired food covered the counter and old children’s drawings were hanging on the fridge that was slightly opened. No lightbulbs that filled the room with light, just a simple candle on the table he lit. The house was cold. As cold as ice. And his family was gone.

Every single day, for the past three years he had kept them alive in his memory, in the house he and Claire built together, and for one last time he closed his eyes once more to see them again.

“Jamie, you have to let go.”

He was now sobbing wholeheartedly, his two beautiful daughters now standing next to Claire, looking like the most beautiful angels he had ever seen.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so so so sorry.”

He now fell to his knees.

“Jamie, we will always be with you, in your heart we will live on. Brianna, Faith and me. Forever. We might not be there to witness every single thing in your life but we will know, when you talk to us every single day. We will watch over you and protect you and love you even in death. You have to soldier on, Jamie. God gave you your life, use it for all of us.”

“Da we love ye so much.”

“Aye. So so mutch.”

And for one last time he kissed his daughters foreheads and his wife's lips. He looked into the beautiful three pairs of whisky eyes that were so full of life. That look they gave him with so much happiness on their way to get ice cream. The look of fear he could never forget, when the truck on the road hit their car. He wanted to die with them, right there but he didn’t. He was forced to live on without his family and now it was time for him to process all of it.

“I love you, soldier.”

“I love ye all so so much. God.”

His tears were spilling from his cheeks when Claire stepped towards him to give him one last kiss on his lips, her hand resting on his wet cheek.

“We will see each other again, James Fraser. One day you’ll come back to me. And you kept your promise, up to my last breath.”

He looked at her and remembered his last words before she closed her eyes forever, three years ago. “I love ye.”

He did. He remembered saying it on this exact front porch, holding her hand.

_ “When the day shall come that we do part, if my last words are not I love you, ye'll ken it was because I didna have time.” _

And then he watched the house once filled with light, laughter and love, turn into the ugly truth he lived in for three years. Nothing in this house could give him anything without his family. He was nothing without this family, but now it was time to fulfill Claire’s promise and soldier on.

And he swore he heard a whisper in his ears that said “I’m proud of you, soldier.”

Jamie lost a few more tears before he stepped out of the house and never looked back.

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize for this sadness and heartbreak but, yeah :D  
> LOVE YOU ALL!!!
> 
> A huge thank you to my BETA Hailey!


End file.
